My, that was quick.
The first job opening in college football has arrived before the first full weekend of games.
Jay Hopson stepped down as the Southern Mississippi head coach on Monday, sources told Yahoo Sports. He’ll be replaced by Scotty Walden, the 30-year-old co-offensive coordinator, who sources told Yahoo Sports will be the interim coach.
Hopson didn’t appear at the Southern Miss football building on Monday, as the staff was unsure whether he’d coach practice on Monday afternoon. He never made it there, meeting with the coaching staff around 4 p.m. ET to tell them he was out.
Hopson had a respectable 28-23 record and appeared in three bowl games in four seasons. But entering this season, Southern Miss opened with a home blowout loss, 32-21, to South Alabama in a game where the Golden Eagles were favored by more than two touchdowns.
Hopson was the dude who feuded with his AD about hiring Art Briles, so there may be more to this than just a bad opening week loss, but the guesswork about his replacement has already begun, and a couple of names look familiar.
Bruce Feldman ($$):
Another former Rebels coach who may get consideration is Georgia offensive line coach Matt Luke. He has lots of ties around the state. The Gulfport native is local. He’s still only 43. He was fired after three seasons with the Rebels but took over in very turbulent circumstances and steadied that program.
Either Monken or Luke would take a huge pay cut to jump to Southern Miss (“The school has been hamstrung by financial issues. Hopson’s $500,000 annual salary ranked lowest among Conference USA coaches last season.”), but if you want to scratch that head coaching itch badly enough, who knows?
Get The Picture 
I doubt Luke or Monken will be interested. USM is a different job now than it was a few years ago. Tulane has improved its recruiting base into Mississippi and so has the University of South Alabama. USM is the number 3 team in a small state containing two SEC teams. Granted, one of the SEC teams is coached by a mouth-breathing moron in Starkeville, but it is an SEC team all the same.
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No way Luke or Monken leave Georgia for a smaller check and a bigger headache.
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500 grand goes a long way in Mississippi though.
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I saw some fretting over this yesterday. The move would make ‘0’ sense. Both of these coaches are clearly repositioning themselves to run large programs of their own. Like you said, the Southern Miss job would be a step backwards for them; even if Southern Miss could match the salary.
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what about brett fav-uh-ruh?
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Monken isn’t going back. Luke will wait until the end of the season for better opportunities. Both know Southern Miss already weak financial position will be much worse next year.
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I would think that out of that group, based on the scandal/dumpster fire currently raging at Liberty, Hugh Freeze would be most likely to want to make a move. Of course, Liberty does not have money issues. Which is part of the scandal.
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The Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody (RIP) talked about the financial situation there a lot in regards to what a “power” Southern Miss was 20-35 years ago. I liked watching Favre with one glove sling it around against much better teams back in the day.
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Please hire Art Briles, just to stir the crap, since the HC couldn’t hire him to be OC. That would be so College Football management.
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